A Boston Herald
editorial. Monday, February 19, 2001.
The first economic study of the U.S. embargo against Cuba concludes that
lifting it will do little for either nation's economy. But economic benefit is
not the best argument for ending it.
The best argument is in one of the findings of the report to the House Ways
and Means Committee by the International Trade Commission: 1 million U.S.
tourists a year could visit the island.
The experience of a million Americans crawling around Cuba, which is about
as big as Ohio in both populaton and area, cannot help influencing Cuban society
for the better when Fidel Castro finally leaves power.
There is no propaganda as powerful as personal experience.
Castro could never confine so many Americans to the beaches and big hotels
of Havana; they would be overloaded.
They wouldn't all be tourists; there would be some scouts for traders and
investors who would open the eyes of the Cuban managerial class to the
possiblities for both economic and personal fulfillment when dictatorship
collapses.
And tourists being what they are, always seeking the unspoiled places that
nobody has been to yet, masses of Americans will push into the countryside and
small towns, and will seek out mountain retreats and fishing villages. And
everywhere they will spread hope.
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